Efficiency that boosts economies and moves communities. Wow.

Thanks to their flexibility unparalleled in public transport, buses and coaches are vital contributors to public mobility, tourism, job creation, the economy, better social cohesion and justice, energy savings, a cleaner environment and of course, road safety.

Hands down, no other mode of collective passenger transport can handle all of these things with such ease, which is why buses and coaches are modern day kings of the road when it comes to efficiency and flexibility. In Europe, they provide 55% of public transport, while railway, trams and metros together account for 45%.

Buses and coaches work smoothly to take commuters or travellers from their point of departure to their final destination, even when it involves connecting with a plane, train, boat, helicopter or even hovercraft, in between. They are also central to smooth multi-modality!

National education systems worldwide rely heavily on bus and coach transport for educational trips, school bus services, sports outings, etc. whereas with billions of day excursions, weekend and educational trips, plus vacation trips to all kind of destinations, buses and coaches help provide essential income for many tourist towns and remote sites.

Last but not least, without buses and coaches, many people, including those who do not or cannot drive, would face a dramatic curtailment of economic and leisure opportunities.

Bus Rapid Transit: the mobility hit for Smart and efficient cities!

Eduardo Paes, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who successfully bid on hosting the 2016 Olympic Games, gave an inspirational TED talk on the advantages of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in terms of efficiently moving a huge amount of people within a big city for just 1/10th of what a subway and related infrastructure would cost! It’s no wonder that BRT is the mobility hit for Smart and efficient cities!

The European Citizens’ Mobility Forum (ECMF) will organise, on the 14 October 2014, in Brussels, a workshop dedicated to Multimodal Terminals which will bring together EU, national and local authorities, as well as civil society researchers and stakeholders, business representatives and trade associations to debate the role and place of passenger transport terminals in the intermodal transport chain.

The European Citizens Mobility Forum, composed of all key political and business stakeholders, today held its first formal meeting with a view to propose new concrete actions to double the use and market share of buses, coaches and taxis in the EU by 2025.